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Catfish on the forum

It is great to see so many reports and photos of catfish on the forum.They were always shunned because of their looks and way they fight dirty.They are a formidable species on fly and it is good to see them getting some recognition.Next to yellowfish it is the species I target most and I have have some of my most memorable days on the water hunting them.They are virtually in every waterway so their is always an opportunity to target them near to where one stays in a river or dam.
Lets see how big we can get them on fly.Keep posting those pics.

Saturday me and Mitch caught about 30-35 catfish.I pulled out one of my personal best fish for the river of around 18kg aswell as a personal best carp.It seems the rains made things better for fishing and not worse as I thought.Cant wait to go find find some more cats.

Have a look at the new "Stywe Lyne" Mag. I think it is page 46 or 56. Its a small article on a massive man eating barbel that was the cause of people go missing in a river. Apparently the mouth is a meter wide and body parts were found in the stomach.

Have look because I believe somebody is talking K@K. I am 99% sure it is a whaleshark. Its got the white spots and the bone structure to confirm my believe.
1) Whaleshark does not eat any meat
2) It swims around in the oceans and definately not in freshwater
3) I can not believe Stywe Lyne fall for such Sh!t

Just out of interest, how accessible are the barbel in Harties these days?
Last I heard, there was no public access to some of the better spots and most of the water was private property. Was just telling Chris Williams about the good old days with some of the huge barble we used to catch with Louis and some of the 'older guard'.

There is a real possibility that I may well be in good old SA early next year, and was wanting to have a go again. Just need to know I'll be safe and not end up as catfish food where I'm fishing.

Anyone willing to spend a lazy day chasing barble around with me?
Will know closer to the time when things start to happen.

I will check it out but that sounds like like crap.I know that there are certain species in other contries that reach 300pounds plus but hardly human eaters.I think if someone drowned they would surely eat of the rotting body but not a live person.Have a look on you-tube under monster catfish.There are some massive fish.I have seen footage of a catfish on the Orange swallowing a egyptian goose and spitting it out.He returns when he sees the duck is dead and takes it to the depths.Not the smallest bird ,but by no means a human size.

In my local dam, the barbel there regularly take ducklings and goslings in one gulp. I only really measure the barbel roughly in terms of length, but I've got many guys there probably going on 1.5 metres or maybe even more. A good 10 weight with 15 or 20lb Maxima tippet and a 3/0 black neutral-density Zonker or similar often seems to work the trick at dawn or sunset. I managed one last night I guess about a metre long that was cruising round the margins looking for stray animals/birds/whatever.

The big boys reputed to live at the Harties dam wall (if pollution from all the overdevelopment there hasn't also killed them off...), vundu and the catfish in some parts of USA and Europe make our barbel look like minnows..